Apple 'powered by 100% renewable energy'

Apple has announced its global facilities are now powered by 100% renewable energy and manufacturing partners are moving towards a similar goal.

The company said the achievement covered retail stores, offices, data centres and related facilities in 43 countries, including the US, UK, China and India.

Nine additional manufacturing partners have committed to power all of their Apple production with 100% clean energy, which brings the total number of supplier commitments to 23.

Currently Apple has 25 operational renewable energy projects around the world, with 626 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity.

Some 286MW of solar generation came online in 2017 and a further 15 projects are under construction, which will generate over 1.4 gigawatts of renewable energy across 11 countries.

Among the projects are Apple Park, Apple’s new headquarters in Cupertino, which draws its energy from sources including a 17MW rooftop solar installation and 4MW of biogas fuel cells.

The building also gives energy back to the public grid during periods of low occupancy.

More than 485MW of wind and solar projects have been developed across six provinces of China to reduce manufacturing emissions.

Plans were recently unveiled for a 400,000sq ft state-of-the-art data centre in Waukee, Iowa, that will run entirely on renewable energy.

In Japan, Apple is partnering with local solar company Daini Denryoku to install over 300 rooftop solar systems generating 18,000MW of energy every year.

In Singapore, where land is scarce, Apple used 800 rooftops for solar generation.

Apple said clean energy from supplier projects helped avoid over 1.5m tonnes of greenhouse gases being emitted in 2017.

New supplier commitments include ECCO Leather becoming the first soft goods supplier to commit to 100% renewable energy for its Apple production.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, said: “We’re going to keep pushing the boundaries of what is possible with the materials in our products, the way we recycle them, our facilities and our work with suppliers to establish new, creative and forward-looking sources of renewable energy because we know the future depends on it.”